What's behind Elon Musk's attachment to the letter X?

From PayPal, to Twitter and even one of his children, the tech entrepreneur has a long affiliation with the letter X. Here's what we know about it.

Elon Musk has announced Twitter will be rebranded to feature the letter X. Source: AAP / Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP

Key Points

• Elon Musk has announced Twitter will be rebranded, with the famous blue bird logo to be replaced with an X.
• Musk has featured the letter X in business names, products, and his personal life over the years.
• He has not publicly explained his affiliation to the letter.

Elon Musk has begun the process of rebranding Twitter, replacing the trademark blue bird with a white X on a black background.

In a tweet on Sunday, Musk said he wanted to change the logo, and polled his millions of followers on whether they would support changing the site's colour scheme from blue to black.

He posted a picture of an X against a black background and changed his profile picture to the new logo.

"And soon we shall bid adieu to the Twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds," he said.

It's not the first time the entrepreneur has featured the letter X in his business branding.

In fact, it has been featured in both his professional and personal life for over 20 years.

In 1999, Musk cofounded online bank X.com with Harris Fricker, Christopher Payne and Ed Ho, which then went onto merge with a competitor and became PayPal.

In 2002, Musk founded the space services company Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, widely referred to as SpaceX.

Elon Musk (right) co-founded online bank X.com in 1999. Source: AAP

He became the largest shareholder of automotive and clean energy company Tesla in 2004, and became CEO in 2008. The company produced a Model X SUV in 2015.

In 2017, he purchased the X.com domain from PayPal, saying it had "great sentimental value". The site X.com now redirects visitors to Twitter.

In 2020, Musk's then-partner, musician Grimes, gave birth to a son. The couple announced they had named him X Æ A-12, which was later changed to X Æ A-Xii as the initial version would have violated Californian naming regulations.

In 2022, he said buying Twitter was an "accelerant to creating X, the everything app."

In 2023, Musk founded the artificial intelligence company xAI.

What will happen to Twitter's bird logo?

Twitter's blue bird symbol is known as Larry, reportedly in tribute to basketball player Larry Bird.

The bird icon was first introduced in 2010, undergoing several changes and redesigns before the current version was approved in 2012.

Artist Martin Grasser, one of the co-designers of the logo, outlined the process in a series Tweets.

He said the logo was designed to be "simple, balanced, and legible at very small sizes."

At the time of writing, the old logo still appears on some parts of the Twitter site and app, but the official Twitter account has been renamed to X.

Late Sunday afternoon, Twitter's new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, said X would "transform" the platform.

"It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression," she wrote on Twitter.

"Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square."

-Additional reporting by Reuters